Graduate Research Program in Historical Studies 2017 awards announced

The Graduate Research Program in Historical Studies has announced its annual awards, one for the best PhD dissertation and one for the best Masters dissertation, as submitted in the calendar year.

Judged by an independent panel of judges, the awards were announced late last month and will be presented at the Historical Studies Graduate Research Conference on Wednesday, 24th October 2018.

Dr Jason Gibson was announced winner of the Monash Historical Studies PhD Prize for 2017 for his thesis, “Urrempel Men: A Collaborative Interrogation of T.G.H. Strehlow's Collection”

Judges commented that Jason's piece was “a superbly written work of literature, very well referenced, logically structured, based on rich data, well-analysed and theoretically sophisticated.”

Jessica O'Leary, “Keeping it in the Family: The Diplomatic Role of Eleonora and Beatrice d'Aragona in Dynastic Networks”, and Sam Prendergast, “‘Please Listen Carefully’: Oral History and the Harvard Project on the Soviet Social System”, were joint recipients for the Monash Historical Studies Master Prize for 2017.

Judges remarked that Jessica's thesis was “a sophisticated analysis, carefully embedded in the gender scholarship of early modern cultural and diplomatic history, and produced from thorough engagement with archival and printed primary source materials.”

Sam's thesis was praised for it's “persuasive comparative argument for the possibilities and limitations inherent in using an archive of interviews recorded in writing.”

Congratulations to Jason, Jessica and Sam.

2017 was an excellent year for Monash Historical Studies, as Dr Robert Gunn received both the University’s Mollie Holman Doctoral Medal and the 2017 Faculty of Arts Prize for Outstanding PhD Thesis, for his thesis, “Art of the Ancestors: Spatial and temporal patterning in the rock arts of Nawarla Gabarnmang, a major Jawoyn cultural site on the Ahnhem Land plateau.”